Reader Britta writes in to let us know about a writeup she did on the old (abandoned?) Mission Police Station on 17th Street near Treat. I’ve always wanted to check out the interior, but never had the chance. Anyone know what’s going on in there now? Last I heard Tracy Chapman was thinking of buying it, and had maybe done some recording in there. Britta suggests that it may currently be owned by an entertainment industry management firm. Sounds spooky.

Check out the tale of a recent ride-along over at The Bold Italic. Written by Mark Lukach with design by Diana Martinez. Among other things, we learn that when you get pulled over late at night for something seemingly insignificant, the cops are just using you as an excuse to flash their lights.

[From midnight to 2 a.m.], the most important thing for officers is to be as obvious as possible. The easiest way to do that is to pull people over. So we did that. If we saw a guy with a tail light out, or turning left where it’s prohibited, we pulled the car over. Not to cite the guy. Not to be dicks. We did it in order to have police lights flashing on busy streets where drugs are sold, gangs congregate, and the inebriated get rowdy. In the course of an hour, we pulled over four cars along Mission Street, and didn’t ticket a single driver. We were just letting our presence be known.

The Mission Police took a beating at Tuesday’s community meeting concerning increasing violence in the neighborhood.

On the bright side, they had a fun raffle during the event:

Eventually, Corrales managed to lighten the mood – just in time for the raffle. Latecomers and newbies rushed to get their names in for the monumental door prizes – police station pens, a mug and two Giants tickets.

“Can I borrow your pen?” one man asked the winner of a Mission Station pen.

“I came just in time for door prizes!” said DJ Brown who later won the tickets.

Our blogosphere comrade generic1 was held up by gunpoint a couple of days ago, and couldn’t get the police to show up to take his report. So the next day he walked right up to an Oakland Police Officer in the same area he was assaulted, and this guy flat out refused to take his report.

If you read the full story, the officer in question probably wasn’t trying to be a dick; it’s just policy. But still, if someone says, “hey, I was held up by gunpoint here,” shouldn’t that take priority?

Full scoop here, which includes interesting details like the fact that apparently cops are as addicted to their iPhones as I am.

The captain of San Francisco’s Mission District police station will hold a meeting with residents tonight to discuss police efforts to stem gang-related violence, which left three men dead over the weekend.

Police are still trying to figure out what triggered the initial hostilities, but the conflict is believed to be between separate factions of Nortenos, police spokeswoman Sgt. Lyn Tomioka said.

Word. The meeting will be held tonight at Mission Educational Projects, Inc. at 6 p.m., and will be hosted by Mission Station police Captain Stephen Tacchini.

From 10-5, the police did not seem interested in doing anything more dramatic than giving homeless people a hard time, but I noticed the typical drug-bizarre was missing from Hipster Hill. Did they ever come out and taze some bros?